Government Spends $12 on Safe Sex and Contraceptives for Every $1 Spent on Abstinence

Heritage Foundation, Executive Summary

– January 14, 2004.

Early this year, Congress will work to renew welfare reform by reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. As part of this process, Congress will also seek to reauthorize the Title V abstinence education program that was created, along with TANF, in the original 1996 welfare reform act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). It is expected that advocates of “safe sex” programs will use the welfare reform debate as an opportunity to push for additional federal funding for comprehensive sex education and contraception promotion programs in the name of reducing the occurrence of teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock childbearing…